Voices of the Caribou People: a participatory videography method to document and share local knowledge from the North American human-Rangifer systems

Abstract

ABSTRACT. "Voices of the Caribou People" is a participatory videography project for documenting and sharing the local knowledge of caribou-user communities about social-ecological changes. The project was conducted in partnership with indigenous people who share a long and close relationship with caribou and self-identify as the "Caribou People." The Caribou People desired to share their knowledge, experiences, challenges, and coping strategies with other indigenous communities and with scientists and wildlife managers. Six communities in the North American Arctic participated in the project, with 99 people interviewed about the ecological, cultural, spiritual, and nutritional aspects of their relationship with caribou. The Caribou People wished to tell their stories with their own voices, without the filter of a researcher's interpretations of their messages. The communities defined three project goals, i.e., documentation, communication, and sharing of knowledge, and we identified methodological challenges associated with these goals. Through videography, we sought to overcome these challenges and accomplish community goals, which formed the basis for our project's evaluation. Participants reported changes and concerns ranging from impacts of oil and gas exploration, mining activities, nonlocal hunting, and high energy costs to impacts of climate-related conditions. All interviews were made available in the public domain via the Internet for sharing. In the view of the communities, videography preserved their legacy and served as a repository of traditional knowledge in changing times; visual images were seen as a powerful medium to communicate with policy makers and the public at large and were seen as a preferred informal, unstructured approach. We have (1) described the approach of the Voices of the Caribou People project as a collaborative video methodology and (2) discussed the effectiveness of this method in meeting the goals of participatory research. General insights into the process of using videography as a participatory research tool to study socialecological systems in partnership with indigenous communities have been provided.

Participatory mapping to negotiate indigenous knowledge used to assess environmental risk

“…There is growing interest in expanding approaches to sustainability science that enable the incorporation of diverse forms of knowledge, from a variety of sources, when developing solutions to sustainability challenges (BorriniFeyerabend et al 2004;Kates et al 2001;Lang et al 2012). Cultural and participatory mapping and visual multimedia knowledge platforms are gaining recognition as useful tools for working with indigenous knowledge systems and methodologies (see Maclean and Woodward 2013;Zurba and Berkes 2014) and for understanding how customary institutions have been adapted to support contemporary indigenous-led approaches to knowledge sharing and comanagement (Bali and Kofinas 2014;Davies et al 2013).…”

Climate Change Totems and Discursive Hegemony Over the Arctic

“…Inuit spirituality, sacredness and pragmatic adaptation are inseparable. Unlike with the iconic polar bear, which must be protected from harm, there is no inconsistency between hunting the sacred and worshipping it (see Bali and Kofinas, 2014;Tobias and Richmond, 2014;Pearce et al, 2015;Sakakibara, 2017). Indigenous circumpolar peoples have a long tradition of bear ceremonialism, which dictates that rituals of reciprocity and respect are enacted after a bear is harvested (Eloka, 2020; see also; Clark and Slocombe, 2009).…”

"You can never replace the caribou": Inuit Experiences of Ecological Grief from Caribou Declines

“…Caribou have been characterized as an essential species for Indigenous peoples across the Circumpolar North (Bali, 2016;Parlee et al, 2018). As such, these declining numbers are also posing a variety of complex and significant challenges for Indigenous communities who have relied on and continue to rely on caribou for food (Chiu et al, 2016;Kenny et al, 2018), cultural identity and practices (Bali & Kofinas, 2014;Polfus et al, 2017), spiritual ceremonies (Castro, Hossain, & Tytelman, 2016;Rixen & Blangy, 2016), clothing (Bali & Kofinas, 2014;Zoe, 2012), and livelihoods (Mason, Dana, & Anderson, 2007;Parlee et al, 2018) for millennia.…”